In a crowded, busy, distracted world… how can you design an experience that your audience will never forget? How can you inspire even the most jaded audiences?
It’s tough to impress your clients and audiences. Expectations are higher, and attention spans are shorter. How to keep people off their iPhones, and on topic?
Taking meetings from “uninspired” to “unforgettable”
In this battle for attention, you can design unforgettable meetings, once you find new ways to fascinate.
When you fascinate your participants, they’re more likely to learn, retain, and apply what they’ve experienced. They reach for higher levels of learning, and eagerly share ideas. Your participants become raving fans.
How exactly can you achieve this? Can anyone design an unforgettable experience? If so, what’s the process?
7 ways to turn any meeting into a fascinating experience
A quick glimpse inside the seven ways that you can design fascinating experiences:
1. PASSION: Build emotional connections.
Heighten your participants’ emotional connection to a topic by developing ways for them to bond. People are far less likely to forget emotions than facts. A few examples: Opt for ways to heighten the five senses: through colorful locations, delicious food, and music. Select a speaker with a heartfelt personal story. Avoid focusing on cold, hard facts in your content, because these dampen emotion. Any type of learning can make people feel passionately about the subject matter, once you tap into the brain’s hardwired patterns.
2. INNOVATION: Surprise and delight with creativity.
Tweak the norms. Incorporate humor. Make the planning experience fun for your client and team. When people experience something new, they are more likely to tell others about it because it’s noteworthy. For instance, instead of the standard conference format, defy expectations and experiment with something out-of-the-box, such as witty marketing materials, or unexpected exotic cuisine.
3. POWER: Allow them to control part of the experience.
Empower participants to confidently network and make new connections. 90% of introductions fail to lead to future connections because people simply don’t know how to open a conversation. With a few simple tools, attendees can stop feeling unconfident and start building their network. For instance, add a conversation starter to each nametag.
4. PRESTIGE: Impress them with a new standard.
Find one way to over-deliver. Increase their perceived value of sharing in this moment. Instead of making everything good, find one element they’ll never forget. For instance, curate the guest list to increase demand, or invest in the best possible opening speaker or performer. A Virtuoso conference surprised attendees when Frances Ford Coppola walked on stage as the closing keynote, and an Epsilon meeting wowed executives with a performance by Jewel.
5. ALERT: Teach with precise data and facts.
Sometimes, an emotional approach isn’t the most effective. When delivering a complex analysis of a problem, it’s more effective to avoid the warm-and-fuzzy, and instead, impress with a crisp analysis, impressive charts and graphs, and precise results.
6. MYSTIQUE: Arouse curiosity to learn more.
Hint at what’s to come, but don’t give it all away. Get them leaning forward in their seats, so they can’t wait to find out what’s next in the agenda. Get them buzzing. Curiosity is an incredibly powerful motivator. An increased desire to learn more gets people “hooked,” so they stay involved. The TED conference, for instance, never reveals exactly how speakers are chosen, which adds to the allure of the unknown. What about keeping the keynote speaker or closing party performer a secret?
7. TRUST: Rely on traditional patterns, such as familiar hotels, or standard foods.
Sometimes, the wisest choice is to go with what’s worked in the past. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, build trust by repeating a familiar format. Incorporate traditions, and repeat stories of shared history.
By applying one or more of these seven tools, anyone can make a meeting go from uninspired to unforgettable. Think of this system as a new shortcut to earning and keeping anyone’s attention.
Tweets:
Designing experiences isn’t about “checking off the boxes”. (Click to tweet)
Meetings are not just meetings… they’re an opportunity to make a difference. (Click to tweet)
Meetings are your opportunity to motivate, challenge and inspire the world (Click to tweet)
10 Comments
All very interesting, thank you! I find tip no. 7. surprisingly interesting because I had expected that a “fascinating” experience had to be different. By the way, I have been running a networking community of introverts for a little over 3 years now, and we meet monthly. I welcome suggestions to create and interest for them to show up and when they do come, to interact. Many thanks 🙂
this week I have one of the most important meetings for me in years: Proposing to my current employer to realign our relationship to one of client and consultant, and persuading him to be the first participant in my new Guaranteed Compliance Program.
I will be using your suggestions. Thank you.
There was some interest in what to do with the regular old mundane meetings, so I thought I’d share my experience.
Taking Sally’s advice, I’ve been able to give big boosts to my team’s weekly marathon meetings. My advantages are innovation and passion (but maybe not in that order).
I emphasize innovation, naturally enough, by reframing the problems people present and offering novel solutions. If I know what problems we’ll be working on, then I make a point of thinking divergently in advance about how to solve them and working up a something visual to present. Many times now, my poorly drawn stick figure UI/UX suggestions and storyboards turned out to be the keys that allowed us to move forward.
I emphasize passion by first and foremost by giving no quarter to cynicism about what we do or whom we do it with, by emphasizing my hope for our work, by listening empathetically and paying attention to the feelings and interests of my co-workers, by sharing my feelings about our work, by sharing insights from the activities outside of work about which I’m passionate and by finding opportunities to learn more about what my coworkers do outside of work… Well, there’s nothing really surprising on that list; it’s all just being human… A few times I’ve delivered really blistering criticism — on two occasions when I could have avoided it easily and considered doing so — because I saw that it was an opportunity to express how much I care, on one occasion, about our organization and on the other about the very same coworker I was laying into. Those were creative risks worth taking.
These are all good suggestions but they sound like they are tailored for more significant events and meetings. What if it’s just a regular recurring staff meeting? How do you spice those up and maintain the level of engagement?
Second to Daniela’s question.
Would love to see too a suggestive example of the Power,
despite myself being rather a Prestige presenter, which is the
simplest thing ever.
HOW and WHAT to add as a conversation starter to each nametag, please?
What’s a nametag you’re talking about?
Thank you in advance for the update!
Wanna have a positive meeting? Focus on what’s fascinating about the folks you’re meeting with. That’s taking Sally’s Fascination traits and using them to build up your group. Everyone lovers to hear about why they are fascinating. Whether they are a strong “E” (not extroverted but engaging) or a strong “I” (nor introverted but interesting) they will respond to your challenges. Sally is the Master of Fascination. Use her genius to make your meeting unforgetable.
Sally! I fascinated a group of 150+ biz women in Edmonton this past week when I moderated a panel called “Building your Financial Toolkit” ,,, by bringing a real toolkit to the stage – the kind a contractor or handyperson uses. By painting a picture with the measuring tape, hammer, stud finder (for the single women!) and a power tool (so many women own them) – electric screwdriver,,, I transitioned to the items in a business’ financial toolkit – they loved the humor, the picture I painted for them, and set their minds to something that is serious, without being overly serious! Check out tweets for @TheCashLady
Intrigued by your idea “add a conversation starter to each nametag” – can you please make a couple of examples? It would really help
In a large staff meeting yesterday, the discussion revolved around the necessity for better employee engagement. The only area of positive scoring in a recent survey was in the area of employee/immediate supervisor trust. The question was, “Why was this such a positive area of engagement for employees”? After a few moments of silence, I took the opportunity to explain that managers have the greatest influence when they know how others perceive their strengths. The follow-up question was, “you mean like a personality test? I said, no, more like a fascination test”. I continued to explain the concept of “How to Fascinate”. Best meeting we have had in 5 years! I wish I would have signed up for the “100 gifts to share” offer to made on 12/20/2016. I think I either started a movement or a revolution! (I’ll let you know which one occurs)
Great suggestions! Always enjoy reading your perspective.